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Forensic Science Lesson Plans

admin — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 00:52:26 +0000

A lesson plan is a teacher’s detailed description of the course of instruction for an individual lesson. While there is no single way to construct one, most lesson plans contain some or all of the elements of the course. In today’s modern teaching style, individual lesson plans are often inappropriate. Specific objectives and timelines may be included in the unit plan, but lesson plans are more fluid as they cater to the students needs and learning styles.

Students are asked to engage in problems or inquiry learning. Rigid lesson planning with title, objectives and specific outcomes within certain time constraints, often no longer fit within modern effective pedagogy. Today, formal lesson plans are often required only by student teachers, who must be demonstrably familiar with the components of a lesson, or by teachers new to the field, who have not yet internalized the flow of a lesson.

Given below are a series of different lesson plans which may appeal to science professors, currently teaching forensic science in class, involving a range of difficulties and different aspects of forensic science.

Bloodstain Analysis involves introducing students to some of the techniques used by forensic scientists for analyzing blood, the concept of blood type, and providing opportunity for students to practice critical thinking skills in the context of scientific inquiry. It consists of two parts. The first part is intended to teach students about the catalase test, which is used to detect the presence of blood. While there are more sensitive tests available for the presence of blood that an investigator might use, this is by far the cheapest. Students are expected to predict whether or not the substances provided will be catalase positive or negative. They also examine whether each substance tests positive for blood using the phenolphthalein test. After this step, they open the evidence packets provided and test whether each stain that was found is likely to be blood or not. The second part addresses blood typing.

Hair Analysis intends to introduce students to the thought process involved in developing a technique for forensic analysis and to the physical structure of hair. It also provides opportunity for students to improve skills in observation, critical thinking and microscopy. This activity again involves two parts, which may be performed separately or as a cohesive unit. The first part requires students to examine a given set of hair. Using their observational and critical thinking skills, they develop a procedure to identify hair collected from crime scenes. The second part is intended to complement any crime scene scenario. In this part, students examine the hair supposedly collected from the crime scene as well as hair of the suspects and the pets involved. They use the data sheet provided to determine which suspect is the most likely match.

DNA fingerprinting involves the preparation and conduct of the DNA fingerprinting laboratory. It is divided into the following parts- Preparation of the student materials, plasmid DNA preparation, restriction endonuclease preparation, migration dye preparation and preparation, loading and running of an agarose gel for use with carolina blue stain.

By: Elizabeth Morgan

Science Lessons for Grade 1 on the Five Senses

admin — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 17:48:30 +0000

Many teachers agonize about planning science lessons for Grade 1. They think that the students are too young to take part in science experiments. This is because they associate science experiments with using chemicals and Bunsen Burners. At this grade level, there are many experiments you can do in class with the students that are perfectly safe and do not put the students in any danger.

For example, it is easy to plan a lesson related to using the five senses. A taste test, or an experiment where the children are blindfolded and have to identify certain foods by the way they taste, smell and feel, is perfectly acceptable. The only precaution you would have to take in this type of lesson is to make sure that none of the children have any allergies to the foods you plan to bring into the classroom.

To teach the concept of using the sense of hearing, it is quite easy to make a tape recording of certain noises and see whether the students can identify them. In order to evaluate the lesson to see whether or not the students have achieved the objective, you can have them draw a picture to tell what they learned, retell it to you or have them write a sentences in their journal or learning log.

If you wish you can also have the students create noises of their own using materials that you bring in, such as scraping a comb over glass or the sound of chalk on the chalkboard. Many of the activities that you use with science lesson plans dealing with sound will also achieve the objectives for your music curriculum as well, so you might want to work with the music teacher on this section.

Some of the outcomes that you need to address in Science lessons for Grade 1 are:

1. Students will be able to identify the five senses

2. Students will be able to demonstrate ways that materials can be used to alter their smell and taste

3. Students will demonstrate ways we can use materials to make different sounds

4. Students will describe ways in which materials can be changed to alter their appearance and texture

5. Students will demonstrate how each of the senses helps us to recognize, describe and safely use a variety of materials.

You can teach all of these objectives using fun activities to keep the students interested. You have to think of the age of the students and realize that these activities are very simple, yet relevant to students in Grade 1.

What kind of activity could I use to teach Objective 3 – Students will describe ways in which materials can be changed to alter their appearance and texture? You have to keep in mind that you don’t have to get the students to do all the experiments. You can do some with them watching and then ask them questions about what happened. For this objective, you can take a piece of paper towel. Pass it around to all the students so that they know what it looks and feels like. Soak it in water and then show the result. Students can immediately see how the appearance and the texture of the material have changed.

When you are teaching Science lessons in Grade 1, you should always look for appropriate children’s literature so that you start the lesson off with a story to peak their interest.

“How Paper is Made” by Arthur Lockwood is a good book to use for this lesson because it describes the changes in the appearance of a tree from the time it is cut down until it is made into paper.

By: Frances Stanford

Getting Your Kids To Love Science

admin — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 22:16:19 +0000

It seems that kids love to do anything and everything, but schoolwork and science is just another extension of schoolwork, or is it? What kids might not realize is that science is all around us in our world. While kids may not realize it science includes outer space, growing flowers or vegetables, animals, and even dinosaurs. So pretty much any thing you do with your kids whether it is going to the park for the day, going to the zoo or going to the animal shelter you can turn it into a science lesson, most of the time without them even realizing what you are doing.

Because kids are naturally curious it is easy to get them to love science because science will give them the answers to the numerous questions they have. One of the keys to getting your children interested is to get them to enjoy reading, while a lot of science can be hands-on you still have to do research and you also have to be able to read the directions. Kids who do not like to read will not have much fun researching information or worse they might not read the directions for the science projects that they want to do.

One of the keys to getting your kids to love science is to start early. Do not wait for school to start before trying to teach your child about science. Start teaching them stuff at a young age. The great thing about science is that you can gear it towards any age. For example when you are taking a walk in the spring you can talk with your child about why flowers are starting to grow this time of year. Or in the winter when your preschooler asks why their snowman melted you can explain to them about what snow is and why it melts.

Another important thing is to take advantage of your child’s natural curiosity. Kids love to ask questions, they always want to know how something works, why something does that, how something is made, and anything else that they can think of to ask. Rather than telling them the answers you can ask them what they think the answer is. Getting the right answer is not as important as letting them think the process through. Giving them this opportunity will make them feel good about themselves, which can lead to a love of science.

Part of getting your kids to love science is to become actively involved in what they are doing. This lets you spend quality time with your kids something both of you love to do. Simply set aside a weekend and do hands-on projects with your kids. For example you can bake cookies with children and teach them about how mixing the ingredients together turn the separate ingredients into something else entirely. You can also teach them about temperatures when the cookies are in the oven. Another great science project for kids is planting a garden, include them in all the steps and let them help you tend it. During the different stages of tending the garden talk to your child about what you are doing and why you are doing it. Or if they are old enough ask them about the processes, this can even work with preschoolers.

Getting your child to love science can be fun for the both of you. And who knows you might find that in getting your child involved in projects you love science too. Just remember to keep the projects at an age appropriate level, but also make the projects challenging so your child does not grow bored.

By: Chuck Lunsford